Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Fact, Fiction and Re-enactment

The year is 1816 and
Major John Whistler, inside his residence in Old Fort Wayne,
speculates on Indiana’s
chances for statehood. He shows visitors a map of 1816 Indiana
and explains his reasons for believing Indiana
will become a state this year. It turns out that Major Whistler is right….

I want you to get a good look at something I found the other
day. You know my old friend, Google™—you know, that trusty search engine that
never bats an eye at search requests, no matter how unusual the juxtaposition
of the terms you have just entered in its dialog box? Well, the other day in
puzzling over the Jackson-Ijams-Whistler story, I thought I’d just sit down and
cut to the chase. I pulled up the Google site, and entered the two key words I’ve
been wanting to know about: Ijams and Whistler.

I wanted to see if there were any other hidden bits of
information to reveal more on that story of why widow Ijams traveled through
frontier territory to meet and marry a military man in Missouri.

Of course, the documentation itself has eluded me. That,
alone, is frustrating. But if others, online in self-published genealogy sites,
are stating that that is what happened, then I’ll cautiously accept the tie
between those two surnames.

My goal in entering those two search terms was simply to
flush out any other trivia-in-hiding. And trivia I did find—though not quite of
the type that I would have expected.

My result leaves me wondering whether to take the report as
fact. After all, it is, first of all, a report from a newspaper. You know my
take on that.

Then, while it is a news story on an actual fort—Fort Wayne in, well, Fort Wayne—it is, after all, a story about a story.

It is a story of a re-enactment of a historical vignette.
The date is set as 1816. The location is, of course, the old fort at what is
now the city of Fort Wayne.
The key players, at least in this newspaper article, are—now, get this—John Whistler
and William Ijams.

No, I am not making this up.

I am fervently hoping that the good people running the
historical display at Fort Wayne
are also not making it up.

The staff of Fort Wayne is dressed in detailed 1816
costumes and speak to all as if it is the year 1816. Because of its
authenticity, you begin to feel like a settler contemplating putting down roots
in this Northwest territory.

“The Indian problem has died down a
bit—it’s mostly Miami
around here,” says William Ijams, a gunsmith. “But the purpose of our fort is
to make you settlers feel secure, that’s why we are here.”

If this museum portrayal is based on fact, I need to find
out who chose the details for this re-enactment, and learn what basis there was
for this little bit of history. I’m especially keen on finding out more about
this over twenty-year-old display because it mentions one more twist: the
contemporaneous service of Elizabeth Howard Ijams’ soon-to-be-deceased husband
William, and her future second husband, John Whistler. All, strangely, in that
very year of the re-enactment’s setting: 1816.

This is definitely a twist in the research trail I hadn’t
been expecting.

Above right: hand-drawn map of Fort Wayne, circa 1795; courtesy Wikipedia from original held by the Library of Congress; in the public domain.

The newspaper report on the Fort Wayne historic display, written by travel columnist Fred Nofziger, was originally published in The Blade (Toledo, Ohio), section D, page 7, on Sunday, August 5, 1990.

12 comments:

Now that's some Google time well-spent. Let's hope the organizers of that reenactment are still around for you to interview. It's somewhat of a relief to know Elizabeth didn't just up and marry a stranger.

Wendy, I'm hoping that same thing myself: that someone is still staffing the fort who remembers that scenario used for the re-enactment now over twenty years ago! I foresee some letter writing in my near (but post-holiday) future.

Thanks, Pam! I was so excited to find it. I'm hoping some responses to letters will provide more behind-the-scenes details. I do know that Whistler's presence at the fort is based in fact, but I haven't--at least up to this point--found anything to substantiate William Ijams' presence there. This will be interesting!

Amazing. I loved the way you described google ("Never bats an eye at search requests.") I still can't believe what I found in google books earlier this week which prompted me to stay up very later and write "An Early Christmas Gift." It will be interesting to see where this takes you and us. :-)

Yes! Grant, I see you share my love for Google books. Despite how popular it is to malign Google ("evil empire," et cetera), I so appreciate the gems I've been able to unearth in old, old books, thanks to this service.

I worked with some re-enactors last summer..they are mostly keen history buffs and will research something to the nth degree to make sure it is true. I bet if you contact the re enactors in that are they will tell you exactly where they got their info..how exciting!!! :)

I am sure hoping that is the case! After we get through the Christmas holiday season, I'll pull this article back out and pursue contacting both the newspaper reporter and the museum itself. I'd be overjoyed if this leads to some resources I hadn't yet discovered.

This is amazing. You'd almost think that destiny had a hand in your discovery -- if you were a superstitious person, that is. Of course, none of us admits to being superstitious. : )) But doesn't it give you a bit of a frisson?

We're setting out for Fort Wayne tomorrow. Our daughter lives there. City of Three Rivers!

It was quite a thrill, Mariann--of course, tempered by the thought that maybe, just maybe, it was merely an odd coincidence. I'm reserving judgment--or ecstatic exuberance--for when I receive confirmation of just why the Fort chose to use those two particular men's names.

Best wishes for your safe travels to Fort Wayne, and for a pleasant holiday with your daughter.

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.